


Easy As Breathing

by platinum_firebird



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Clothed Sex, F/M, Sparring, Undercover, Wall Sex, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:29:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27924559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platinum_firebird/pseuds/platinum_firebird
Summary: When Nihlus pairs him up with the other potential Spectre candidate, Garrus isn't sure what to expect from Commander Shepard. As they race to crack a case that could threaten the whole Citadel, he finds there's a lot about her to like - and he likes all of it. He never intended to fall for a human - especially not one he has to work with - but Shepard, it seems, is an exception to all his rules.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 7
Kudos: 116
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Easy As Breathing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corina (CorinaLannister)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorinaLannister/gifts).



Garrus had hoped today’s trip to the Presidium would be leisurely; that he would have time to stroll around and take in the views, and to soak in the atmosphere of the most rich and powerful people in the galaxy.

Instead he found himself taking the stairs up from the Wards two at a time, glancing every other second at his omni-tool. If he was late for this meeting, he might as well launch himself off the Citadel and into the cold embrace of the vacuum.

The glimpses he got of the Presidium were lovely, as he dodged and ducked around other pedestrians to get to the assigned meeting place. He just about managed to stop himself from skidding around the corner that would bring him in sight of the small cafe, and once on the street, he slowed down to a fast walk, straining to catch sight of the small group of tables.

Nihlus had told him to take the table right next to a huge potted pegonia plant. Problem was, there was already someone sitting there. Being in a hurry, Garrus strode straight up to the table and said, “Listen, human, I need this table.”

The human woman slowly raised her eyes to his, an expression that he thought was amused indignation on her face. “You could at least try ‘ma’am’,” she said.

Garrus stared at her for a moment before the words processed. Right. He was being rude. “Sorry,” he said, “But I’m supposed to be meeting someone here-”

Her head had tilted to the side, and she cut across him to say, “Are you Vakarian?”

That brought him up short. “Yes,” he said slowly, “How do you know that?”

“You’re here to meet Nihlus, right?”

“How do you know that?” Garrus asked again, a sneaking suspicion beginning in his gut.

“Looks like we’re both here for him,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m Commander Shepard,” she continued, holding out her hand.

Garrus looked at it for a second before remembering the human greeting called a ‘handshake’. He reached out and took it, suddenly curious, and found that taking her hand in his felt a lot like holding an asari’s hand (not that he’d had chance to do much of that). “Garrus Vakarian,” he said, forgoing a title. And then, because he had all the tact of a drunk krogan, he continued, “You’re really here for Spectre training?”

One of the bushy lines of hair above Shepard’s eyes quirked up a little. “I’d better be.”

Garrus was saved having to reply to that by the arrival of Nihlus. The other turian appeared as if by magic on Garrus’ right side, saying, “I see you two have already been introduced.”

“Yes,” Garrus said, stamping on the urge to add ‘sir’. Shepard just nodded.

“Good. I’d invite you both to sit down for tea, but we don’t really have the time,” Nihlus said, motioning for them both to follow him. Garrus expected him to go back onto the street, which meant of course that he instead turned and went behind the cafe’s counter, waving to the young asari on duty, who seemed completely unsurprised. Nihlus led them through the small kitchen and into a store room, then ducked down and opened a waist-high panel in one of the walls. As he led them through into what was obviously some kind of service or maintenance tunnel, Garrus wondered if this sort of showboating was all part of the Spectre initiation ritual. Glancing to the side, he saw that Shepard’s expression was blank and impossible to read.

The end of the tunnel opened out on the side of a huge skycar lane. Vehicles rushed by at irregular intervals, filling the tunnel with their roar, and wind whipped in through the small opening.

Nihlus dug around for a moment before opening another panel on the wall, this one uncovering some kind of control console. He began tapping information into the computer, and Garrus could see quickly that he had the kind of clearance to get into levels of information that would have been locked up tighter than Barla Von’s bank vault if Garrus had tried to get into them with his C-Sec clearance. After a long second, Nihlus stood back and said, “Look at this.”

Both of them leant forward to stare at the small control screen. It took Garrus a moment to trace the lines of code and track the numbers, but he felt a small swell of pride as he was the first to say, “Someone’s tapping into the system.”

“Right,” Nihlus said, nodding. “And as of yet, we haven’t been able to work out who or why. If they were just tapping into surveillance or records, I’d say it was a C-Sec issue; but so far as we can tell, whoever this is has access to nearly every system on the station.”

“Master level access?” Garrus said, unable to keep the horror out of his voice.

Nihlus shook his head. “Not quite; they’re still locked out of some of the most important controls, like opening and shutting the station’s arms, for example. But sectioning off an entire ward? Or shutting down their atmosphere? They could do something like that.”

“So they could control whole areas of the station if they wanted,” Shepard said. “Question is, what are they waiting for?”

“The threat of killing thousands of people could net them a pretty big ransom,” Garrus said.

“Then maybe whatever they want isn’t here yet,” Shepard said, “Or the conditions aren’t right.”

Garrus looked at Nihlus, but the Spectre just looked vaguely amused, as if he were enjoying this back-and-forth. “Terrorists?” he asked.

“Could be. How long have they been there?” Shepard asked Nihlus, nodding at the console.

“We noticed them several days ago.”

“If terrorists wanted to pressure the Council into something they would’ve sent threats as soon as they were into the system,” Garrus said decisively, “So they’re waiting for something.”

Shepard’s brow was furrowed, and she was staring out at the passing skycars without really seeing them. After a long moment of thought she said, “Or they just see the advantage in being able to watch everything that goes on, and move things every so often for their own benefit. Like a spider, tugging every string just so.”

Nihlus finally volunteered a little of his own information, saying, “There’s evidence they’ve been in the system for weeks, which does point to them playing some kind of long game.”

Shepard nodded. “Imagine the kind of shit you could get away with if you had the power to open a door here, turn off a security camera there, or fake a report to get that one C-Sec guy to move away from his post for a few minutes.”

“You’d be like ghosts,” Garrus murmured.

“So now you understand why the situation is so critical,” Nihlus said, shutting down the computer and closing the panel on the wall. “We’ve got a lot of people on this, but I thought it would look good if the two rookies I’m sponsoring cracked a huge case like this,” he said, his mandibles flaring in a grin. “I’ll give you the codes and access to see this information, but from there you’ll pretty much be on your own. Think you can handle it?”

Personally Garrus thought it sounded a bit much for trainee Spectre candidates - but apparently Shepard didn’t, as she answered instantly with, “We’ll take care of it.”

Nihlus’ grin grew wider. “That’s what I like to hear.”

/

Nihlus disappeared quickly after showing them the way back to the cafe, leaving the two of them facing each other on the street.

Shepard, it seemed, wasn’t the type to linger in awkward silence. “Looks like we need to pool resources,” she said. She nodded at the cafe, and Garrus followed her toward an empty table. “So, forgive the insensitive question, but who exactly are you?”

Garrus could only describe what followed as a very weird parody of a first date. Garrus told Shepard all the relevant information about his time in the military, his service with C-Sec, and how he’d been shortlisted out of about a thousand hopefuls for more serious Spectre training. In return, Shepard told him her story, and Garrus finally realised why the name ‘Commander Shepard’ had been ringing a bell all this time. The brutal massacre of fifty human marines by strange alien monsters on Akuze had made the headlines on the Citadel a few days after the disaster, and most of the reports had mentioned the lone surviving member of the team by name. She waved him off when he expressed his sympathy, but he swore he could see pain in her eyes before she looked away. She’d just come from a mission on Eden Prime, where they’d picked up a strange but inactive Prothean beacon.

Garrus couldn’t deny the little flicker of envy that sparked in his chest. The most exciting things he’d done were bust pirate rings and chase down a few drug lords; he’d got the recommendation for Spectre training, it seemed, mostly on test scores. Shepard, on the other hand, had been out there fighting monsters and discovering long-lost Prothean artifacts.

“I don’t know if Anderson will want to stay here while we investigate this, so we might not have access to the _Normandy_ ,” Shepard was saying. Garrus almost asked her how she planned to balance being a Spectre and having a position in the Alliance Navy in the future, but he decided that was probably too personal a question.

“There’s probably some way to requisition things we need,” he said, “Up to and including ships, I would guess.”

Shepard acknowledged this with a nod. “Well, that’s about it for me,” she said. “You’ve still got access to everything you had as a C-Sec officer, right?”

“I’m _still_ a C-Sec officer, technically. Just on leave,” Garrus said. “I’m sure I can get the commissioner to reinstate my access again if it’s for Spectre business.”

“Then let’s take care of that first,” Shepard said, pushing to her feet.

It was early evening by the time they’d got an appointment with the commissioner, convinced him to reactivate Garrus’ access (not without a lecture on how Garrus’ father would prefer him to stay with C-Sec, which was excruciatingly embarrassing to go through with Shepard standing there listening in), and got back to C-Sec headquarters. He got a few funny looks as he walked through the halls - both for being back on duty and in the company of a human, he guessed - before they reached the haven of his old office. No one had been brought in to take his spot, since technically he hadn’t left, and his office-mate wasn’t in, so there was a spare seat for Shepard to take as Garrus collapsed into his own chair. They sat in silence for a moment, and Garrus sensed neither of them were really sure where to start.

“So,” Shepard said, “How to catch a ghost, huh?”

“How indeed,” Garrus muttered.

“Maybe you should get that thing Nihlus showed us up, so we can have another look.”

Garrus shook his head. “There was a reason he took us into that tunnel; you can only access that data at certain control panels.”

“Is there one in the C-Sec headquarters?”

“I don’t know.” Curious, Garrus woke up his omni-tool and opened the message Nihlus had sent him. It actually included a helpful list of control panels where they’d be able to pull up the same data he’d shown them - and there was indeed one inside C-Sec’s headquarters. “There’s one down in the requisitions room.”

“If you open it, can you, you know… scrape the data?”

Garrus gave her a look over the top of his omni-tool. “I’m getting the sense you’re not good with computers, Commander.”

“How could you tell?” Shepard asked dryly.

“To answer your question, no. But I think I could plant a spike that would allow us to see the data running on the control panel on one of these screens,” he said, gesturing to his computer. “Then at least we could watch it without having to sit on the floor of Requisitions.”

“Right,” Shepard said, “Let’s get on it, then.”

Luckily for them, there was no one in Requisitions except the officer on duty. While Garrus tried to unobtrusively open the control panel and plant his spike, Shepard sidled up to the counter and started chatting to the requisitions officer - or more accurately, chatting her _up_. The officer on duty was an asari who, it seemed, was open to this kind of obvious flirting, and Garrus couldn’t help rolling his eyes at some of what he heard coming from the direction of the desk.

Still, it meant his meddling went entirely unnoticed. When they got back to his office the devices connected perfectly, and the display from the control panel showed up on Garrus’ computer screen, the scrolling numbers glowing faintly orange in the dim blue lighting of his office. He realised with a start that it was getting late. “I didn’t realise how late it’d gotten,” he said, nodding to the clock, “Do you want to call it a night?”

For a second Shepard hesitated; then she said, “Yeah. I better work some things out with Anderson and the crew anyway.” She stood, brushing down the lapels of her coat. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Garrus said, and found himself watching her as she went out of the office and disappeared down the corridor. There was something… intriguing about her, aside from the fact that she was set to be humanity’s first ever Spectre. On a whim he looked her name up on the extranet, but there was very little there that he hadn’t already read when the stories from Akuze first ran, or that she hadn’t told him at the cafe that afternoon. The most interesting thing was that her mother, Captain Hannah Shepard, was a decorated member of the Alliance, but that told him little more than that she’d come from a military background. He sighed, closing the window. He should probably just trust that Nihlus knew what he was doing, in choosing to have them work together.

Garrus sat there for several more hours, having his computer log the data he was getting from the spike and running it through several programs of his own devising. It was probably little more than the other technically-minded Spectres were doing, but they had to start _somewhere_. While he waited for the tests to run, he also drew up a list of gangs and crime syndicates who might have the resources to undertake something as significant as hacking into the Citadel’s main systems.

When that was done, he was at a loose end. He watched the tests running for a few minutes before an idea entered his head. At first it made him feel slightly guilty, though he didn’t know why; he’d been brazen enough to look up Shepard’s personal history on the extranet. There was no reason looking up information on her species was any worse; in fact, it was simply practical. With that thought in mind, Garrus brought up several search pages, looking at everything from basic information on human planets and cultures through to specific guides to successful interaction that had been written with clueless turians like himself in mind. It was past one am station time when he finally went home, leaving his computer running so it could collect data throughout the night.

/

He returned in the morning to find Shepard already waiting for him, leant up against the wall and reading something on her datapad. “Morning news?” he asked, catching sight of the headlines rolling past at the top of her screen.

She nodded. “I figured there was a possibility that a seemingly ‘impossible’ crime might turn up in the news,” she said. “A low possibility, if they’re controlling the entire station like the data suggests, but everyone slips up once in a while.”

Garrus nodded, and handed her the list he’d drawn up the previous evening. “I reckon any of these guys would have the resources to pull something like this off, if they managed to find the right hacker,” he said, “If something comes up in connection with their names…”

“Right,” Shepard said, scanning the list. Then she looked up at him, and he noticed that her eyes were a strange, pale grey, quite a contrast to the almost obnoxiously bright red of her hair. “What are you planning on doing today?”

“I wanna see if I can trace this hack back to it’s source,” he said. “Which is probably impossible, since the Spectres have had days and haven’t managed it yet, but you never know.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I can help you with,” Shepard said. Then she frowned. “Hey, Garrus - can you track what changes they’ve been using their access to make?”

Garrus nodded. “My system should’ve logged it, yeah. It’s been tracking their data all night.” He turned to his screen, and after a few minutes he had a data file that he sent over to Shepard.

“If I can match these together with C-Sec reports or new stories, then maybe we can work out what they used the system for,” Shepard said.

Garrus winced. “That’s a good idea, though I don’t envy you the task.”

“I can handle it,” Shepard said, and she gave him a wink before she turned to the spare desk, which was- odd? It certainly made something inside him feel strange for a second. Shaking his head, Garrus dismissed it and turned back to his own computer.

They worked in silence for most of the day, Garrus getting up occasionally to go grab refreshments from the break room. He deferred when Shepard offered to do it, partly because he wanted to protect her from the looks and maybe even comments she’d get, being one of the few humans here - and partly because it had taken him three months to work out how to use the coffee machine, and he couldn’t inflict that on his unsuspecting new partner. His _old_ partner, Taurlius, didn’t turn up for the entire day, which Garrus thought was strange until he checked his schedule and saw he was actually on vacation for the week.

Garrus had known trying to track the signal would be an exercise in frustration, but he realised at the end of the day that a small part of him had actually been quietly confident that he would be the one to crack it - which of course only made it more frustrating to have spent hours and have nothing at all to show for it. He sat back in his seat and let out a huff of frustration.

“No luck, big guy?” Shepard’s voice said from behind him.

“Nothing,” Garrus said, unable to hide how irritated he was. He took a breath, willing his voice to be more cordial when he said, “You?”

“I… might?” Shepard let out a frustrated sigh of her own. “I think I’m seeing a pattern, but erroneous datapoints keep cropping up, and I can’t tell if they’re just there to throw me off the scent or if they’re actually part of a bigger pattern I’m not seeing.” He heard her chair swivel, and looked over his shoulder to see her leaning back, her face unexpectedly curled up into a lazy grin. “You wanna take a break?” she asked.

For a second he thought she wanted- because her _tone_ -

 _She’s an entirely different species, Garrus. She probably means going to grab a drink or something._ “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

Shepard’s grin widened.

/

“This isn’t quite what I expected,” Garrus said.

Shepard’s eyebrows - he knew the correct name for them now, after his research - drew down slightly. “Do you want to go?”

“No, no. It’s just that…” He trailed off, wondering how to phrase this politely. “I’d gotten the impression sparring as a way to let off steam was more of a turian thing than a human thing?”

“I’ve been taking notes,” Shepard said, doing that wink again that made Garrus feel strange. “I am living on a ship partially designed by turians. I’ve been using it as an excuse to try and get the crew interested in learning about turian culture.”

On the mats in front of them, one of the two sparring turians got the upper hand, throwing the other down onto the mat. “Is it working?” Garrus asked.

“On some of them.” Shepard shook her head. “My pilot told me he’d use it as an excuse to look up turian porn, so I guess you can decide for yourself whether that counts as ‘working’ or not.”

He was probably treading into dangerous or at least potentially uncomfortable ground, but Garrus couldn’t help asking, “Are humans… into turians, er, sexually?”

Shepard turned and gave him a look that he interpreted as mild surprise, and had to think about her answer for a second. “I… guess? I mean, there are people who’re into krogan, so.”

“Glad to know we rank equally to krogan,” Garrus said dryly.

“Honestly it’s hard to gauge, with the fucking deluge of asari porn,” Shepard said.

Garrus almost asked, _And you’re not into asari?_ before catching himself. There was a line, and that question would certainly have crossed it. “Asari are popular with turians, too,” he said, watching as the match currently on the mats came to an end. “Anyway. You ready?”

“Damn right I’m ready,” Shepard said, twisting her hands until they cracked alarmingly. Garrus wondered if that was normal for humans.

“And I’m damn curious,” said the referee, who’d appeared at their side. He was giving Shepard a measuring up-and-down look. “We don’t get many humans in here.”

“If she can fight off a thresher maw, she can take me,” Garrus said, somehow still managing to make it a joke despite the unexpected surge of defensiveness that welled up in his chest.

That made the referee look ever so slightly impressed, even if Garrus noticed a momentary flinch on Shepard’s face. Dammit, he shouldn’t have said that.

He got no time to apologise, as the mats were clear and the ref was now waving them into the ring. “You know the rules, Vakarian,” he said, coming to stand between them, “Just remember, human, if you break bones, I’ll break you. And no biotics.”

Garrus had time to think, _Biotics?_ in the second before the ref blew his whistle; then his attention was entirely focused on Shepard. They both dropped into a crouch. Garrus brought his arms up to cover his face, while Shepard took a step back, then circled to his left. Watching her move was like watching a predator, and the intensity of her grey eyes trained on him made something hot and tight pool in his veins. They moved around each other, feeling each other out, heedless of the crowd shouting for them to get on with it; but soon enough Garrus’ impatience got the better of him, and he made the first move.

She blocked the blow seemingly without effort. He struck again, and again she blocked, following it up with a hit of her own. It was easy enough for him to block, but he felt like that was the point; like she was testing his defences, seeing where the boundaries lay. They traded a few more blows; Garrus had thought his harder carapace would give him an advantage over Shepard’s softer human skin, but it seemed she wasn’t fazed in the slightest. She skipped around him, attempted to trip him, and he kept his feet only by the grace of fate.

They fell back, circling each other again, and he said, “You’re good.” It wasn’t often he told people that; as a hand-to-hand specialist himself, someone had to really prove themselves before he acknowledged their skill. He could tell already, though, that Shepard was on his level.

“Likewise,” Shepard said, and her grin had an almost feral edge to it. “I was expecting you to be good, Vakarian, since you’re tipped to be a Spectre, but-” and then she lashed out with her right hand, catching him a solid blow to the face. He managed to step back out of her reach, but it was a near thing.

He could almost hear his old instructor admonishing him for getting distracted by a pretty face - until reality kicked in. He’d said that about _turian_ women; Shepard was human.

 _You were still hanging on her every word like an idiot,_ he told himself, his guard well and truly up now as they circled each other again. Shepard was giving him this smug, confident grin, though, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure the fact that she was human mattered all that much.

They went back and forth for what seemed like hours, the yelling around them getting more intense as the fight dragged out. Shepard was sweating; Garrus could see the sheen of it on her forehead, and dripping down the bunched muscles of her exposed stomach. He wondered what it would be like to lick those little beads of perspiration off her tawny skin - and that distraction cost him the match. She moved like lightning; he barely even registered how she managed to kick his legs out from under him and pin him down on the mat.

Her body was hot where it pressed against him, and he couldn’t help the shiver that ran through him when her voice said, close to his ear and rough with exertion, “Yield, Vakarian.”

His name in her voice, like that, did things to his insides that finally drove the point home; he had a thing for Shepard. His new partner. His rival. A _human_.

“Garrus?” she asked, her voice still rough, which just made it worse.

“Yeah,” he breathed out, having to take a second to recover his wits. “I mean, yield. Yield.”

She let him go and then instantly grabbed his shoulder, turning him over to face her. “You alright, buddy?” she asked, her face a picture of concern. “You didn’t hit your head or something on the way down?”

Garrus blinked at her for a second before saying, “No, it was just- fast. You’re damn fast, Shepard.”

“Damn right I am,” she said, and yet again she did that stupid wink - and Garrus knew his fate was sealed.

/

He sat in his living room later that evening, staring at the rough surface of his coffee table while ignoring the vid playing in the background.

He was attracted to a human. And not only a human - which would be considered weird enough in itself - but a very inconvenient human. A human he was going to be working with until whenever this huge mystery surrounding the Citadel hacking finally got solved. He growled, frustrated, and got up to pace.

The thing was, whenever he’d felt like this before, he’d just plucked up the courage to make an offer. It usually didn’t take him long to get up the guts to do it, and in the turian military, that sort of thing didn’t affect working relationships. It also wasn’t _technically_ against the rules at C-Sec, given how close a lot of their regulations hewed to turian military codes.

But this was different. Shepard was _human_ , which meant she probably had no interest in a turian, without even taking into account the rather different rules about fraternisation that humans seemed to value. She certainly hadn’t shown any sign of interest when he’d brought up humans’ sexual inclination toward turians earlier.

Garrus huffed out a frustrated sigh, and sat back down. He couldn’t ask anyone he knew about this - the only one close enough to him for it to be appropriate was Solana, and he shuddered at the thought of what his sister would say - so there was only one solution. The extranet.

Most of what he found was porn, because of course there was porn. Quite a lot of porn, actually. Porn that he really shouldn’t be watching while trying to research. Porn that he _really_ shouldn’t be watching while imagining Shepard in the human woman’s position, while imagining his own talons digging into the flesh of her thighs as she _moaned_ , as he moved in her, making her-

 _Well, now you’ve masturbated to the thought of fucking her,_ he thought a little while later, lying on his back in the bedroom, still a little out of breath. _Hopefully it can only get better from here_.

His personal terminal was still on the bed beside him, still open on the same page, though the video had finished. He looked at it for a second, thinking. Maybe he should do more research - with _no_ porn this time. _Or maybe you should just subscribe to Fornax and call it a day_ , said a treacherous little voice in his mind.

All in all, the night was a complete failure.

/

He dreaded walking back into the office and facing Shepard the next morning - especially since, on top of everything else, he’d left quite abruptly the previous day - but she seemed completely unconcerned when he entered their shared space. Garrus had managed to get a keycard for her, and she was already scrolling through her lists, coffee cup in hand. Garrus blinked at it for a few seconds before saying, “You managed to work the coffee machine?”

“Is it hard?” Shepard asked, turning to him with a raised eyebrow.

Garrus decided not to answer that, instead sitting down at his own desk and saying, “Do you have anything?”

“Possibly,” Shepard said, moving so that he’d also be able to see her screen. What followed was a long explanation, but by the end of it Garrus could see how Shepard had matched up what the hacker had used their access for with the details of a robbery that had taken place the day before.

“Problem is, this still doesn’t answer _who_ did it,” Garrus said, leaning back in his chair, “because we can see they wiped the security footage.”

At this Shepard got up, flipping her keycard over in her hand. “Then it looks like what we need is an eyewitness.”

Garrus stared up at her, incredulous. “Shepard. Even if anyone did see it, you’ll never get them to talk.”

Shepard gave him a wolfish smile, uncomfortably reminding him of his burning attraction toward her, which the focus of looking at a mountain of data had managed to subdue. “I’ll get them talking,” she said, and she turned to the door.

Garrus sighed and hauled himself up out of his chair. Despite his misgivings, he’d never forgive himself for letting her go out there alone if anything happened. “You better remember you’re the rookie out on the street, Commander,” he said as they walked together through the halls of C-Sec Headquarters.

The grin she turned on him made something jump in his stomach. “I’ll follow your lead, then, officer,” she said - and dammit, was she _actually_ flirting with him? Or was he just deluding himself?

“I’ll get us a skycar,” he muttered, before turning with relief to the transport requisitions desk.

Shepard was back to business by the time they landed at the warehouse where the shipment had been stolen. There was a pinch-faced Rosenkov Materials representative standing by the big double doors that led inside, talking to an asari in smart clothing who Garrus guessed was some kind of insurance inspector. The Rosenkov rep was an older human man whose suit looked a couple of sizes too big for him; as it became clear they were making for the warehouse, he left the asari and came over to them with a very suspicious expression. “Can I help you?”

“Officer Vakarian and I are here to investigate on behalf of C-Sec,” Shepard said, motioning toward the badge Garrus held out for him to inspect.

The man’s eyes scanned it for the barest second, his expression becoming even more unimpressed. “Someone from C-Sec has already been here,” he said dismissively.

“This is a little different, sir,” Shepard said. She looked from left to right, and said, “The truth is…” Then she leant forward conspiratorially, catching his eye and seeming to draw him in even against his will. “The truth is, this is related to Spectre business,” Shepard said in an undertone. “Like an assessment.”

The man’s eyes widened. “They’re considering allowing you to join the Spectres?” he asked, and Garrus could see his curiosity was getting the better of him.

“First human to join,” Shepard confirmed.

The man glanced back toward the warehouse. “And our warehouse is… involved?”

“We think so,” Shepard said.

The man’s expression became worried, his eyes darting left and right. “I’m sure you understand… this is a big enough problem for the company already…”

Shepard glanced over at the waiting asari and said, “We can pretend to be C-Sec if that’ll help with your insurance claim.”

A look of relief washed over the man’s face. “Yes, I think that would be best,” he said, standing aside. “Take all the time you need, er…”

“Commander Shepard,” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Thank you for this, sir. We’ll be as quick as possible.”

While the man walked back toward his meeting, the two of them were free to step into the Rosenkov warehouse. It was similar to most of the warehouses Garrus had seen on the Citadel; a huge room of various different levels, packed full with crates, shipping containers and loading equipment. Even after the break-in, there were still a lot of workers on shift, moving crates around, taking inventory, and loading up transports.

“Now I see why Nihlus paired us up,” Garrus said, as they made their way through the maze of shipping containers to the area where the goods had been stolen from.

“Why’s that?”

“If I’d been alone, that guy would’ve sent me away to get a warrant.”

Shepard shrugged. “I bet if he’d been a turian you could’ve talked your way in.”

Garrus winced. “I… wouldn’t have laid a bet on that, Commander.”

“Why? You don’t seem that bad at conversation to me,” she said, grinning at him.

He looked away. “I guess I just don’t have your natural charm.”

“Oh, so you think I’m charming?”

Garrus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get on with this.”

Shepard laughed, but she let the matter drop. Soon enough they arrived at the area they were looking for, which was made obvious by the holographic police line that someone from C-Sec had set up around the crime scene. There was a bored-looking officer on duty, who straightened up when she saw Garrus coming. “Officer Vakarian, sir!”

Garrus had to dig around in his memory for a second before he came up with, “Julisa. Good to see you. How’s the crime scene?”

“Quiet, aside from the rep,” Julisa said, nodding toward the direction they’d come from. “Still no idea how they moved the goods, though. Looks like an inside job to me. The Rosenkov guy keeps saying they background checked all their employees, though, and he doesn’t believe me when I tell them that doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t one of them.”

“Can you tell us about the robbery?” Shepard asked.

Julisa looked at her, then looked back to Garrus for confirmation; he nodded. “It’s pretty basic, really. About one am last night, the security camera feed shuts off. When it comes back on again at two, all this stuff is missing.” She waved at the empty area they were standing in. “Weird thing is, the door that leads out into Level Five of the ward,” she turned to point it out, “registers one opening in the same time period without an attached ID, like it just decided to open on its own for some reason. Now, _I_ think that means someone with a company ID opened it and then deleted the record, just like they deleted the security footage, but the Rosenkov guy isn’t having it.”

“He must have a lot of faith in his employees,” Shepard murmured, looking toward the door Julisa had pointed out.

“Yeah, or he just doesn’t want to be on the hook for hiring a thief,” Julisa snorted.

“They probably would’ve needed an inside man to know what to take,” Shepard said. “I’m sure one of those gangs on your list would’ve had the resources to bribe an employee here.”

Garrus nodded. “Do you have a list of who was on duty?” he asked Julisa.

“I can get it for you now.” She tapped a few times on her omni-tool, and the file zipped across from her to Garrus. “There were only a few people here. All of them claim they saw nothing, of course.”

“Right. Thanks, Julisa.”

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Julisa called as they walked away, “I’m stuck here aaaall day.”

Garrus raised a hand in acknowledgement, and then they were out of her sight. Beside him, Shepard was already digging through the list of potential eyewitnesses. There were, Garrus saw as he looked over her shoulder, only seven. Still, even in a warehouse this large, it seemed odd that _none_ of them had seen or heard over thirty crates’ worth of goods being stolen.

Shepard nodded when he communicated this thought to her. “Plus, they must’ve brought something in to move the crates with, as the warehouse didn’t report anything being stolen.” She flipped through another few slides, and then she stopped, her mouth twisting. “Garrus. Look at this.”

“What is it?”

“The log from last night’s shift,” Shepard said, stopping and turning her omni-tool so he could see it. “The guard who was supposed to be covering the sector the crates were stolen from reported a disturbance and went to investigate it, just before the security footage went offline. Whatever the disturbance was, it took him to the other side of the warehouse.” She flipped the map around, showing him the relevant points, before switching to a different view. “And if we look at what the guys packing the crates were doing, we can see all the stock they needed was far away from the area where things got stolen, too. That could’ve been an inside man giving the criminals information on where the workers would be, _or_ they could’ve used their access to the system to put in a dummy order containing things that were all being stored in this area of the warehouse, keeping the workers away from where _they_ wanted to be.”

“Which might still require an inside man, to tell them where everything in the warehouse was stored,” Garrus said.

“Unless they got into Rosenkov’s database and downloaded a map of the warehouse,” Shepard pointed out. “Either way, this points to someone playing a long game. If they can keep doing this, they could steal whatever they wanted from anywhere on the Citadel.”

Garrus nodded. “Still, what they took might allow us to narrow our focus a little bit. We can look into gangs or syndicates who would have the connections and resources to move these type of goods in this quantity, that might give us a smaller list of names.”

“Sounds good.” They were at the door of the warehouse now, and Shepard nodded toward their skycar. “I’ll drive?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

/

Garrus had not been thanking her fifteen minutes later when he’d stumbled out of the skycar outside the building of the first potential eyewitness. ‘Hair-raising’ was one way to describe Shepard’s driving; ‘irresponsibly reckless’ was another. “You know I should really report you to C-Sec for… everything,” he’d said, gesturing toward their skycar.

Shepard had shrugged. “Are you going to?”

“No,” Garrus had said, “I’m too busy trying to keep down my breakfast.”

It was gone lunchtime when they got to the home of the last worker. Garrus had realised quickly that Shepard was very good at getting people to talk; she seemed to know just when to push, and where - and he wasn’t the only one whose eyes seemed drawn to her by a magnetic, irresistible force. Despite this, none of the other workers had anything interesting to say about their night on shift, and Shepard seemed to believe them when they’d said they knew nothing. All but one of them were human, so Garrus felt he had to defer to Shepard’s judgement, much as he felt like she should have been pressing harder for information.

“If this guy doesn’t know anything, we’re back to square one,” he said as they got out of the skycar.

“We’ve got evidence for our theory that they’re playing a long game,” Shepard said, as she rung the bell.

“Yeah, but no idea _who_ ‘they’ are.”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Garrus’ visor popped up with a notification, explaining the phrase as _a human saying meaning ‘you cannot expect to do important things in a short period of time’._ “Except we’re racing against all the other Spectres working on this case, so solving it quickly is kind of what we’re aiming for,” he said.

“We can’t risk them going to ground,” Shepard said, pressing the doorbell again.

Garrus sighed; she had a point there.

Shepard looked over her shoulder at him and said, “Don’t worry, Garrus. If it were easy, the Spectres would’ve solved it by now.”

Despite himself, he found he was reassured by that. Maybe because of the words; but maybe more because of the way she said them, and the expression on her face as she did. It felt like she believed in him.

 _Garrus, stop_ , he told himself. _Attraction is one thing, but infatuation? Don’t make yourself even more of a joke._

“I hope this guy is just a deep sleeper,” Shepard said, hitting the door bell for the third time.

They waited in silence as another minute ticked by with no response from the intercomm. “You’re authorised to enter a home if we suspect foul play, right?” Shepard asked, her voice low.

“You mean if we think he’s dead? Yeah, we can break in.”

Shepard winced. “Let’s hope he’s not,” she said, and she pressed the doorbell button beside another name. After a pause, this person responded, and agreed to buzz them into the building. They took the elevator up to the fifth floor in tense silence.

The corridor on the fifth floor was silent and empty. It looked a little run-down and dirty, but not too bad for this area, Garrus thought. Shepard pressed the bell beside the door of number thirty-six several times, then banged on it, before stepping back with a sigh. “This doesn’t look good,” she murmured.

Garrus knelt down and took a panel off the wall. “I can break in without actually breaking anything,” he assured her. He didn’t know why, but he thought she’d feel that was important, much as he didn’t usually care about such things himself.

It took a minute or two to deactivate the alarm, and then it was easy enough to trigger the electronic mechanism that controlled the door. It slid up, revealing a small, sparse entryway. The only sign of human habitation was the shoes discarded on the floor just inside the doorway.

Shepard slipped a handgun from inside her jacket and stepped inside the apartment. “Mr Robertson?” she called, taking several cautious steps forward, gun raised at shoulder-height. Garrus stepped in behind her, feeling a frisson of nerves run down his spine.

There were two doors on either side of the small room, one closed, and one open. Shepard turned to the open one, then let out an explosive curse word. “What?” Garrus said.

“He’s dead.” Shepard’s expression had transformed into an impressively intimidating glower. She stepped into the room beyond the door, swinging her eyes and her gun from side to side. When Garrus stepped up to the doorway, he saw that it was a living room. Robertson was slumped on the sofa facing the door; it looked like he’d been killed by a single shot to the head. Shepard checked behind the furniture, and said, “Clear,” before moving toward another door that led further into the apartment.

Garrus turned and kicked open the other door that led off the entryway. This was a kitchen, and he could see immediately that there was nowhere for anyone to hide. He checked in the fridge anyway - he’d heard _stories_ \- then moved onto the other door that led out of the kitchen, which opened into a small bathroom. He did a cursory check inside the shower cubicle before meeting up with Shepard back in the living room. She was already crouching down by the body, having clearly found nothing in what Garrus presumed was Robertson’s bedroom. “It was a clean shot,” she said, motioning toward Robertson’s head, “They were standing behind him. He wasn’t expecting it.”

“Professional?”

“Looks like it.” Shepard sighed and stood up from her crouch. “I guess Robertson saw something he wasn’t supposed to.”

“And didn’t live to tell us about it,” Garrus sighed. “Now the question is, do they know we’re onto them, or did they want to stop him blabbing to Rosenkov?”

“Could be either. But the only person who knows we’re working for the Spectres is that Rosenkov rep.”

“Or so we hop-”

They both heard the footstep at the same moment. It seemed to Garrus like they turned as one, raising their weapons, to pinpoint the figure who’d just stepped into the open doorway of the living room.

He was a human man, young, plain-looking. His shocked eyes travelled from them, to their weapons, and then down to Robertson’s body still slumped on the couch. His face crumpled. “Oh god,” he breathed, “Ben.” He reached out to grasp the doorframe, seeming to need its support to keep standing.

Shepard lowered her gun slightly. “Who’re you?” she demanded.

“I- I’m-” The man looked back at them, his eyes suddenly full of mingled terror and rage. “You killed him?!”

“No; we’re with C-Sec.” Shepard motioned to Garrus, and after a second of fumbling he produced his badge. “You know this man?” Shepard asked, motioning to Robertson with her gun.

“He’s my- my boyfriend,” the young man whispered. His eyes fell to Robertson, and they didn’t move.

After a second Shepard holstered her gun and went over to the young man, prising him away from the door and moving him back into the kitchen, where Robertson’s body was out of sight. Garrus followed, stopping in the hallway so he could watch the main door.

“What’s your name?” Shepard asked. She sounded sympathetic and friendly now, reminding Garrus of a nurse telling her patient that everything would be okay.

“Michael,” the young man said, allowing Shepard to sit him down on one of the bar stools. “I- Ben and I were supposed to be going to lunch, but he never showed…” He looked up with brimming eyes. “This is about what he saw last night, isn’t it?”

“What did he see?” Shepard asked, somehow managing to sound soothing rather than desperately interested.

“He said he saw some guys in the warehouse last night who weren’t supposed to be there- I told him to tell the company but he was too scared, said he’d lose his job if they found out he hadn’t reported the incident-” Michael buried his face in his hands. “They must’ve come for him. The criminals.”

“Did Ben give you any clue as to who they were?”

Michael pulled his hands away and wiped his nose, his brow furrowed. “I think- Wait, hold on.” He opened his omni-tool and scrolled through a couple of messages before saying, “Yeah, here. I asked him if he was sure they weren’t company guys, and he said they were all wearing bright green armour, with this red logo…”

Garrus felt his heart jump. “Was there a bird? On the logo?” he asked urgently.

Michael jumped, his eyes darting toward Garrus. He swallowed, then looked down at his omni-tool again. “Something with wings, he said.”

“You know who that is?” Shepard asked.

Garrus felt a surge of triumph as he nodded. “Oh, I know _exactly_ who that is.”

“Okay.” Shepard put her hand on Michael’s shoulder and squeezed. “Listen, we’re gonna call another team in, they’ll deal with the body.” She gave Garrus a significant look, enough for him to get the message; he turned away and stepped out into the hall as Shepard asked Michael if he’d like something to eat or drink.

Half an hour later they were getting back into their skycar, having turned the crime scene and Michael over to a C-Sec team. “So,” Shepard said as Garrus started the engine, “Who’s our mystery criminal with the red bird logo?”

“Miraea I’kona. She’s almost as big as Sederis, just not as crazy.” Garrus brought them up into the air and joined a skylane. “Should’ve guessed it was someone like her behind this. She’s a lot smarter than most of the scum you find running drugs and guns on the Citadel. She’s got friends in higher places, too. She presents herself as a legitimate businesswoman, and she’s very good at covering her tracks - as we saw with Robertson.”

“Where’s her base?”

“It’s a big mansion up on Tiepera Ward.” Garrus looked at her sidelong. “I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

Shepard gave him a disarming smile. “Where better to find all her dirt than in her own office?”

“We’d never get in there.”

“That’s the advantage of being _Spectres_ , Garrus. We don’t have to wait for a warrant, we just go.”

Garrus shook his head. “I’m not talking about a warrant, I’m talking about how quickly and easily we’d be mown down in a hail of bullets if the two of us tried to break in there. That woman has guards and security systems to rival the turian councillor’s.”

“So we go in undercover,” Shepard said.

“It’d have to be a damn good cover.”

“Maybe any other time, yeah,” Shepard said. She held up her omni-tool, grinning. “But it just so happens that I’kona is holding a party in three days time.”

Garrus blinked. “That seems too good to be true.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Garrus.”

His visor said that meant _‘never question the value of a gift’_. He filed away his curiosity over what a ‘horse’ was and what it had to do with gifts, and asked instead, “So what roles do you plan on us playing?”

“It looks like a networking event, so I guess we’d be business partners,” Shepard said. “I’d go for couple, but I don’t think anyone would believe that.”

Garrus couldn’t help but say, “Because I’m too handsome for you?”

Shepard snorted and said, “Oh, definitely,” which made something in Garrus’ stomach jump. “More like most human women aren’t interested in turians.”

 _Are you included in that most?_ he thought, but he couldn’t pluck up the courage to say. “So what’re we selling?” he asked instead.

They worked on the cover story as they drove back toward C-Sec Headquarters, tossing ideas between them. It was already so different from the awkward, wary formality they’d started with, and Garrus thought he’d probably have enjoyed having Shepard as a partner even if he weren’t so damn attracted to her.

/

Garrus spent most of the next three days creating airtight IDs for them to use at the party. Shepard kept tracking which systems the hacker used, and managed to match one more theft to a pattern of commands given using the hacker’s authority. She seemed strangely concerned with the anomalous datapoints she kept seeing, enough that she separated them out and tried to find a pattern in them, too. Garrus inferred from her scowl and muttering that whatever she found was confusing, but he didn’t have time to take his focus off his own task.

The end of the week rolled around, bringing with it the party. Garrus spent so long checking and double checking their IDs that afternoon that he barely had time to go home and get changed before going to pick up Shepard.

They’d both been using public transport to go home every day, like Garrus had always done while working for C-Sec, but tonight they’d both agreed it made more sense to have a getaway vehicle, just in case. Thus, Garrus had never actually seen where Shepard was staying. He pulled up in the entry gate for a docking bay, a simple box-shaped space with a sky-taxi stand at one end and the door leading out onto the docking platform at the other. Through the wide windows near the door he could see the sleek silver and black bulk of a spaceship, with the word _Normandy_ emblazoned in huge letters down her side. _SSV Normandy, Human Alliance warship_ , his visor told him, _Information: Classified._ He sent a message to Shepard, then idly scrolled through the news feeds, waiting.

It took another five minutes before the door to the docking platform opened up. Garrus turned, ready to make a quip about being late - but the words died in his mouth.

Damn, but Shepard looked _good_. He’d only seen her in her rather nondescript Alliance uniform before, which just highlighted the contrast even further, because Shepard’s form-fitting black and gold cocktail dress was about as far from nondescript as it was possible to get. It hugged every inch of her curves, and if Garrus had wondered before if he was into that, now he had no doubt. He was into curves; he was into humans; he was incredibly, impossibly, undeniably into Shepard.

“Will I fit in, then?” Shepard asked, smiling, but Garrus thought he detected just the slightest hint of nerves under her confidence.

“Yeah. I mean, great. You look great. Um.” Garrus cleared his throat. “Er. Tell me you’ve got a gun somewhere under there, though?”

“Usually it’s rude to ask a lady what she’s got under her dress, Garrus,” Shepard said as she got into the skycar. “But yeah, I’m armed, don’t worry.”

He was in for a whole night of this, Garrus realised - a whole night of Shepard looking like _that_ while also doing her same maybe-flirty, maybe-just-friendly banter. He sighed as he got into the skycar.

It was going to be a long night.

They arrived at Miraea I’kona’s palatial home a tiny bit late, but that didn’t seem to matter. The woman on the door told them sternly that there was no guarantee Miss I’kona would speak to them, as she was engaging in business talks ‘at her own discretion’.

“Meaning she’s just talking to whoever’s interesting,” Garrus said as they entered the huge main room. “But I made us look like a very boring business prospect, so we shouldn’t have to worry about meeting her.”

“Good, because I still don’t think I know enough about profit margins to pass myself off as a business owner,” Shepard said, looking around the room. It was a huge space, the lower level a wide floor with art displays and couches dotted around, rising to a mezzanine level above their heads. The decor was gold-themed and luxurious while still just managing to be tasteful. Everyone seemed to be either talking to previous acquaintances or getting food, so since they knew nobody, Shepard and Garrus opted for the latter. “So, how long do we wait?” Shepard asked, nibbling on a vol-au-vent.

“I’ve heard I’kona tends to hold a meeting later in the evening for everyone she wants to talk to privately. If you don’t get asked to that, your chances of getting business with her are pretty much sunk, so everyone left after that should either go home or take advantage of the open bar,” Garrus said.

“So as long as we don’t get invited to that meeting, we’re golden.”

“Right. If she _does_ speak to you, pretend you forgot your last shareholder profits or something. That should put her off.”

“And in the meantime?”

Garrus shrugged. “I guess we pretend to be interested in art.”

Shepard nodded, and Garrus let her lead the way across the floor to a painting no one was standing beside. It was a landscape scene from an uninhabitable planet, and it somehow managed to be both bleak and beautiful all at once. After a moment Shepard said, “I do actually like this,” and Garrus hummed an agreement.

Luckily - or unluckily, Garrus couldn’t decide - it didn’t take them long to attract attention. He supposed a turian and a human together would always draw a certain amount of interest. He soon realised that the first woman who approached them was just looking for famous names, and the second was desperate for anyone at all to talk to. The first went away quickly on her own, and the second pretty soon got the hint that they weren’t interested in talking to her - but it was the third who stayed. She seemed more interested in the fact that they were a human and a turian together than in their fictional business, and Garrus realised after a minute that she was fishing for whether they were here as a couple or not. It made a strange feeling worm around in his chest, the thought that he and Shepard could be mistaken for a couple.

Even after Shepard gently hinted that they were just business partners, the woman still seemed interested in talking - she wanted to cultivate contacts among turian businesses, apparently, and was interested in how a human might do that. To her credit, Shepard managed to answer her questions well, at least as far as Garrus could tell. Their conversation was just wrapping up when Miraea I’kona herself finally appeared on the mezzanine level above.

She raised her arms, and very quickly the room went quiet. “Honoured friends and associates,” she began, “Thank you for coming here tonight. I know we’re all eager to meet new faces and discuss new prospects, so I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to encourage you all to be bold tonight, and as I always say, never let fear hold you back.” She smiled, and the crowd launched into enthusiastic applause. “I hope I can speak to many of you tonight; but please, enjoy the food, the drink, and the music, and most importantly, enjoy yourselves.” She winked, and the crowd laughed; then Miraea disappeared, and the hum of the crowd rose in volume again.

The woman they’d been talking to had disappeared, so Shepard had a moment to ask quietly, “Is this a sex party as well?”

Garrus swallowed. “I guess that’s part of it.”

“Damn it. If we’d come as a couple that would’ve been a good excuse to sneak off,” Shepard said.

 _We still could_ , Garrus thought, but the thought was dampened a little by how businesslike Shepard’s suggestion was, as if pretending to be into him would be just another part of her role. _Keep your head in the game, Vakarian. Don’t let feelings get involved._ “The band is starting,” he said, nodding toward them. “You want to dance?”

Shepard made a face. “How much do you like your toes?”

Garrus tilted his head at her. “I… like them fine?”

“I mean I’m a shit dancer, Garrus.”

“I’m no expert.” The first strains of a slow, stately melody started up, an old piece of asari classical music. “But I can lead, if that’s what you’re worried about?”

“I’m in your hands, then,” Shepard said, and allowed him to pull her into a dancing hold.

Garrus realised immediately that he’d made a horrible mistake. He had honestly only been thinking about giving them an excuse to avoid talking to people; his brain had somehow conveniently forgot that dancing with Shepard would involve holding her close against his body as they spun around the floor. He wasn’t in armour, so he could feel every contact point where the curves of her body met his; she wasn’t soft, exactly, but she was softer than him, reminding him of every single damn porn vid he’d watched as they spun around the floor. He could even smell her - the light scent of her perfume, and hiding underneath it the subtle mingling scent of human skin and sweat. His head inched forward as they changed from one song to the next, and he felt her shudder as his breath brushed her neck.

Her hand tightened in his, just a little, and he wondered if he’d overstepped the mark. He pulled back, meeting her eyes, and they twirled to a stop at one side of the dancefloor as he tried to read the expression on her face. She didn’t look disgusted - more like- curious? Their eyes locked, and Garrus felt heat flare in his stomach. Shepard bit her lip, and Garrus’ eyes were drawn to it. He thought about kissing her there, about throwing this whole damn mission and sneaking off with her somewhere upstairs-

Then someone very close at hand said, “Oh, Miss I’kona!” - and reality came rushing back in. They were on a mission, undercover in the home of someone who’d jump at the chance to kill them if she discovered who they really were. There was no time for fooling around.

Garrus let her go and stepped back, still unable to look away from her gaze. He cleared his throat, about to suggest that they go get another drink, when a voice next to him said, “Mr Detralos, isn’t it?”

 _Just what I need_ , Garrus thought, as he turned to face their host. “Miss I’kona,” he said, giving her a bow, “How wonderful to meet you.”

“Yes,” Miraea I’kona favoured him with a polite smile, then looked at Shepard. “And this is your partner, no? Ms Miranda Lee?”

“Wonderful to meet you,” Shepard said, taking the hand I’kona offered her. _Be boring_ , Garrus willed her, while wondering if that was even possible for Shepard. Or maybe he just thought it was impossible, since he was so taken with her.

“So you’re in custom armours?” I’kona prompted, and Garrus realised with a sinking feeling that she wasn’t just stopping by to greet them and leave.

Shepard, though, managed to hold her own. It was clear she knew what she was talking about, at least when it came to armour; but then she’d pause or make mistakes, the few times the questions came closer to the business side of things. Garrus couldn’t tell whether that was acting or not, but he decided to follow her lead. Hopefully they’d give off the impression of two armour geeks who didn’t really have the business sense to run a successful company.

He could tell after a few minutes that it was working. A faintly bored expression was creeping onto I’kona’s face, and her eyes had begun to drift. Any sensible businessman would at this point have tried to once again catch her interest; instead, Garrus launched into a long explanation of the minutiae of Armax Arsenal’s latest chestplate, hoping to seal the deal on I’kona’s bad impression of them.

He was still mid-flow when I’kona held up a hand and said, “Sorry, Mr Detralos, I’ve just seen someone I need to speak to urgently. Enjoy your evening.” Then she and her little entourage swept off, finally leaving them alone.

Garrus’ rush of relief was cut short by Shepard grabbing his arm and yanking him off in the direction of the balcony. “What are you doing?” he hissed at her.

“I’m very angry,” Shepard said, and for a second Garrus thought she was serious - until she added, “You just blew our chance to make a business deal with Miss I’kona, so now I’m dragging you out here so we can have an argument in peace.”

“Right,” Garrus said, as they burst out onto the mostly deserted balcony.

It ran the length of I’kona’s home, looking out over a bustling street and a busy skylane. Shepard led him into the most deserted corner, far away from the door, and said, “Well, that went pretty well, I think.”

“Being clueless about all her business questions was a good ploy.”

“The first one was a legitimate mistake,” Shepard shrugged. “Then I went with it.”

Silence fell between them. Shepard looked up at him, a contemplative look on her face, and Garrus was suddenly reminded of what he’d been thinking about just before I’kona showed up. And now they were here, alone in a dark corner…

He checked the clock on his omni-tool as an excuse to break his gaze away from Shepard’s. “I’d say we have about another half hour before I’kona convenes her meeting.”

Shepard nodded, and then she sat down on a nearby bench. “I don’t envy anyone who does this shit for a living,” she said, reaching down to rub her feet and loosen the straps on her ridiculous heels.

“Owning their own business?” Garrus asked, sitting down next to her.

“No, going,” she lowered her voice, “undercover. Next time, I’m getting Nihlus to give us a mission where I get to keep an assault rifle in my hands at all times.”

Something in Garrus warmed at the way she said ‘us’, as if she were already imagining them becoming long-term partners. “I’d like that better, too,” he agreed. “Though I’ve heard biotics don’t need a weapon at all.”

“Asari biotics, maybe. I like the simplicity of being able to shoot someone in the head.” Shepard straightened and let her head rest against the back of the bench. “Also this outfit is torture.”

 _It’s torture to watch you in it, too._ “I do prefer my armour.”

“You’re not even wearing heels.”

Garrus chuckled, and checked the time again. “You want another drink?”

“I’d practically die for one.”

It took Garrus a while to get to the bar through the crowds flocking around it, but he noted with satisfaction that no one in the crowd gave him a second glance. It was as he was pushing his way back through the throng that he noticed I’kona on the mezzanine above, pointing various people out to her lackeys. Garrus paused beside the doorway out to the balcony long enough to see her people leave her side and start going up to certain guests, tapping them on the shoulder and whispering in their ears; then he went back outside to where Shepard was still sitting alone on her bench. “Drink fast,” he said, “I’kona’s already calling in her chosen ones.”

Shepard accepted her drink with a smile. “Looks like everything’s going to plan, then.”

“So long as we don’t get a surprise invitation to her inner circle, yes.”

They sat for several minutes in silence, sipping their drinks and listening to the mingled sounds of the street below and the music from the party. For once Garrus didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with conversation; it felt comfortable, to be sitting here together.

Soon enough, though, Shepard drained her glass and said, “That should be time enough, right?”

“Should be,” Garrus said, setting his own glass aside.

The party was less crowded when they went back inside, but no less loud. The band were still playing, having moved on to more upbeat, jazzy numbers, and there were more people packed around the bar than ever.

“Here comes the fun part,” Shepard said, and Garrus jumped slightly when she took his arm. “You know which door we’re headed for, right?”

Garrus nodded up to the mezzanine, and together they took the stairs up a level. He’d been able to use the access given to him by Nihlus for a little more than just looking at the hack data, including downloading a floorplan of I’kona’s home. Now, they only had to get through a door up here on the second level, and they’d be through into the private areas of the house. There was a guard posted by the door, of course; but they already had a plan for dealing with him.

Centre of attention up on the mezzanine level was an art installation by the famous asari artist Ualiva U’aosa. The base of the installation was a large black lozenge shape, which emitted a fine mist contained by a mass effect field. Lights set into the base flashed and shone through the mist, creating complex interweaving patterns. It was very impressive - and incredibly expensive.

It was also powered through a specific fusebox, which was located behind a bench that was out of view of the guard beside the door. Shepard sat down, not having to work very hard to feign aching feet, and Garrus went to one knee in front of her, pretending to be fiddling with her shoes. It wasn’t a particularly complex disguise, but the mezzanine level wasn’t crowded, and most people were too busy looking at the art, anyway.

Garrus made quick work of the wall panel and fusebox’s covering, then took a second to identify the right wire before tugging. The response was instant; a great gasp from the spectators as the art installation suddenly went dead, the mist spilling out and away into the air as the mass effect field dissipated. Garrus flipped the fusebox closed and replaced the wall panel, then turned his head cautiously.

Like clockwork, the guard was already prowling over to investigate. Garrus stood, pulled Shepard to her feet, and the two of them walked off casually - right until they swerved and went through the now unguarded door.

“Perfect,” Garrus murmured, locking it behind them.

“Nice job,” Shepard agreed. When Garrus turned to her, he saw she was pulling her shoes off with great relish.

A second later his amusement turned to alarm as she began hiking up the skirt of her dress - but after a second she pulled out a handgun, then shifted the skirt back. “So that’s where you were hiding that,” he said.

“And damn uncomfortable it was too,” Shepard said. “The sooner this is over, the better.”

“Let’s not waste time, then. Her office is through here.” Shepard nodded, and allowed him to lead the way.

They were careful, peeking around every corner before moving, but they encountered no one on the way to I’kona’s office. The door was locked, of course, and it was a hairy few minutes while Garrus attempted to open the lock without setting off the alarms; but in the end he got it, hissing with quiet delight as the door slid open.

Shepard was already in the doorway, swinging her gun from side to side as she checked the area. Garrus stood and followed as she moved into the room, checking all the corners and behind the desk before she said, “Clear.”

Garrus sat down at the computer and plugged a small machine into the port on the side. The screen flashed, and then his device flashed too, green, green, and then red.

“Going okay?” Shepard asked, looking over his shoulder.

“She should be able to do it,” Garrus said, his voice tight with tension. A system like this was way beyond him, but he’d managed to talk his old friend Fissa into doing the job for them. She was a quarian who’d come to the Citadel on Pilgrimage and never left, and she was the best hacker Garrus had ever known. The little device he’d plugged into the console should allow her to remotely access I’kona’s system, once she’d worked her magic. “We’ll need to give her a while. Let’s check what’s beyond that door.”

Shepard nodded, and they both moved up to the door, taking position on either side of it. Shepard caught his gaze, nodded, and then hit the door control.

There was a squeak of surprise, and Shepard leapt across the room ahead of him. He heard the _smack_ of a gun hitting flesh, a cry of pain, and a grunt. He followed Shepard in, gun up, to find her on the floor, pressing a salarian down underneath her weight. “Don’t hurt me,” the salarian whimpered, and Shepard pressed her gun to the back of his neck in a way that obviously demanded quiet.

Garrus did a quick scan around the room. It looked like someone’s bedroom, with a pristinely made bed and empty bookcases on one side, and a desk with a computer terminal and stacks of paper on the other. The room had no personal touches; all the attention and energy in it seemed focused on the computer terminal, which glowed softly orange in the dim light. It was logged in, as the salarian had presumably been working before they surprised him, and Garrus could see a program running on the screen. “I think this is it, Shepard,” he said, his voice hushed, “The hack.”

The salarian whimpered again, and Shepard pressed him harder to the ground. “Can you deal with it?” she asked, her voice strained.

“Right,” Garrus said, stepping over the salarian and sitting down at the computer. He plugged in a flash drive and began downloading the program, hearing Shepard suppress a few more scuffles behind him. “Should’ve brought some cuffs,” Shepard muttered.

“You don’t understand,” the salarian moaned, his voice high and reedy, “They will punish… they will punish us, for our failure…”

“Are you here against your will?” Shepard asked.

“No… yes… we…”

“Which one is it?” she demanded.

“They will punish- punish us-”

“What’s your name?” Shepard asked, clearly intentionally trying to make her voice softer.

“My name…” The salarian seemed to need to think about it for a couple of seconds. “Yonden Uas. Yes, Yonden.”

“Okay, Yonden, what do you do here?”

“I… research.”

Garrus tapped through the files on the terminal, adding things to the download. There was no telling from the labelling what it all was - the salarian’s filing system seemed chaotic in the extreme - but anything might be useful. “The program’s downloaded, Shepard,” he said. “I just need to download the rest of this, then wipe the computer, and we should be done.”

The salarian let out a long moan. “Nooo… stop him, he must not…”

“What do you research, Yonden?” Shepard asked, trying to distract him.

“I… what they ask… I only do, I do what they ask…” His voice became quieter as he spoke. “I only do… I do…”

“You do what I’kona asks you?” Shepard said, sympathy in her voice.

The salarian gave an unexpected snort of disgust. “I’kona, pfft. I’kona is nothing. My masters… what they ask…”

“Your masters?” Shepard repeated.

“You must not ask… no…”

The flash drive beeped, and Garrus removed it before starting the process that would wipe all the data from the computer entirely. He should probably destroy the machine too, just to be safe.

The salarian suddenly made a choking noise; a second later Shepard gave a little yelp of horror. “What the _fuck_ -”

Garrus turned, hand going to his gun. The salarian was choking in earnest now, as if something were stuck in his throat, and Shepard was looking with undisguised horror at her hand, which was covered in an odd black goo. When Garrus reached down and flipped the salarian over, he recoiled; the black goo was pouring out of every orifice on the salarian’s face, a disgusting tide of foul-smelling fluid gushing out of him as Garrus dropped him to the floor. “What- what’s _happening_ to him?” he asked, hating the way his voice cracked with fear.

“Fuck if I know,” Shepard said, frantically wiping the black goo off her hand. “Is he- can we-?”

Garrus knew what she was asking, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch Yonden again. The salarian was flopping around on the floor like a drowning fish, scooting himself over toward the bed. When Shepard went to touch him, Garrus grabbed her hand. “Don’t. He might be infectious, or-”

“We can’t just-”

The computer beeped, then shut off, the screen fading out. “We need to go,” Garrus said, before sending a couple of shots burning through the computer, frying the electronics. “Shepard.”

She was still staring at Yonden, caught in a paralysis of indecision; but even as they watched, Yonden choked one last time, then went still.

Instantly an alarm began to wail. “Fuck,” Shepard exclaimed, snapping back to reality. “Garrus-”

“We’re done, let’s go,” he said, already moving toward the door.

“What about the machine in the main computer?”

“Leave it, Fissa can keep downloading information as long as it’s plugged in.” Garrus peeked out into the corridor and saw no one.

“What’s our exit strategy?” Shepard asked.

“Not back the way we came,” Garrus said, leading them in the opposite direction. “Up here; there’s a balcony that looks out from I’kona’s bedroom-”

Gunfire cut him off as he looked around the next corridor. There were two guards at the other end, firing from cover. “Can you-” Garrus started.

“Already on it.” Shepard began to glow with purple light that flickered and coruscated across her skin; then she reached out with a clawed hand and _pulled_ , and Garrus heard one of the guards scream. He popped out from behind cover, gun raised, and took the guy out as he flew overhead. In the corner of his eye Shepard pulsed with light, and then she was suddenly gone, moving faster than his eyes could track. A second later he heard another scream of pain, a gunshot - and then silence.

“Shepard?”

“Over here,” her voice said. He popped out to see her standing where the guard had been; his body was at her feet. “Come on.”

They made it to the door of I’kona’s bedroom without further incident, though Garrus could hear shouting and running footsteps behind them. He closed the door and shot out the locking mechanism, hopefully giving them a few extra seconds. He turned to find Shepard leaning precariously over the balcony, looking from right to left. “There’s no exit I can see, and we have a distinct lack of climbing equipment,” she said tightly.

Garrus dug in his pocket, then held up a key fob. “That’s why we brought a getaway car.”

A grin flashed across Shepard’s face, before she jogged back to the door into the bedroom and took up a position. Garrus hit the call button on the fob, then positioned himself on the other side of the door. The sound was faint, but there was definitely shouting coming from outside I’kona’s bedroom.

They waited in tense silence. For a while nothing happened; then a slight gap appeared under the door, into which someone wedged the end of a crowbar. Garrus was just starting to worry that the key fob hadn’t worked, when suddenly the skycar appeared over the edge of the balcony, coming to a stationary hover and opening it’s doors. As Garrus leapt into the drivers seat, Shepard only seconds behind him, the door to the bedroom opened to reveal Miraea I’kona herself, her skin haloed by blue light, her teeth bared in a furious snarl. “Miranda Lee!” she screeched, her biotics flaring as she spotted Shepard.

“It’s Commander Shepard,” Shepard said, giving I’kona a lazy salute before pulling the skycar’s doors closed. Garrus hit the gas, and they roared away from the balcony, dipping to join the lane of skycar traffic.

For several minutes neither of them said anything, Garrus too busy driving the skycar and Shepard looking out the back window, on alert for any pursuit. Garrus spun them through a maze of skylanes in an effort to confuse anyone following them, then took a back route back toward C-Sec HQ. They’d been in the skycar almost fifteen minutes before he said, “Y’know, if the data’s good, we might’ve just solved a case before the actual Spectres.”

The smile Shepard gave him was almost radiant with triumph and joy. “Hope you’re ready to be a Spectre, Vakarian.”

“Damn right,” he said, grinning back at her. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated joy, and he wanted suddenly to reach out, to touch her-

 _Focus on the road, Vakarian_ , he admonished himself. He kept his eyes ahead of him all the way back to C-Sec HQ.

He flopped down into his desk chair when they reached the office. All he really wanted was to get back home and take off this stupid suit before sleeping for a week; but something had to be done with the data. He shot off a message to Fissa, then turned the flash drive over in his hands for a second, willing himself to plug it into his terminal and get to work. He sighed and said, “I’ve told Fissa to send anything incriminating to the Executor’s office. That should give them time to alert the ports, in case I’kona tries to make an escape.”

In the corner of his eye he saw Shepard nod. He looked up to find her leaning against the opposite desk, arms folded - staring at him. They looked at each other silently for a long moment before Garrus said softly, “Shepard?”

He expected her to ask about the data, or what they were going to do now. Instead, she only said, “Do you…” before trailing off.

Garrus frowned. It was rare to see her struggle to put her thoughts into words. “Do I…?”

Shepard wet her lips. “What was that,” she said, “back at I’kona’s?”

Garrus would’ve been able to avoid it - feign ignorance - except that when he stupidly said, “What?” she answered, “On the dancefloor.”

Right. No getting away from it, then; she’d noticed, and Shepard wasn’t the type to leave awkward things unsaid. Garrus avoided her gaze and said, “It doesn’t need to affect our working relationship.”

“So there is an ‘it’?”

“It doesn’t need to be your problem.”

He felt rather than heard her step forward. “I could make it my problem.”

“We’re not going to get very far as partners if I constantly offend you by-”

“Garrus,” she cut him off, “I didn’t say I was offended.”

He finally looked back at her. She’d moved halfway across the space between them, and the look in her eye was so intense it sent a shiver running up his spine. His chest tightened, feeling like something had sucked out all the air in the room. “What do you…” he started.

“I kept trying not to flirt,” she whispered, “I didn’t know how you’d take it. But if you want…”

Garrus swallowed. He did- and if she did-

He probably should’ve hesitated, but the roll of heat that rose in his stomach when their eyes met was intoxicating, overpowering his senses. He stood from the chair, taking a step toward her, and whispered, “Yeah. I want.”

Another long second passed, and neither of them moved. They stood, eyes locked, the tension between them almost tangible, flickering like arcing lines of electricity. Then Shepard stepped forward and leant in to brush her lips gently across his, the barest, most gentle of touches. “Sorry,” she breathed against his mouth, “I don’t know if turians…”

“We can make it work,” Garrus said.

His lips were stiffer, less pliable than hers, but he could mimic her to some extent, letting their lips move against each other as Shepard moved toward him again. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, bending over as she bent back. For a minute there was nothing but the two of them, and exploring her mouth with his, his long tongue nudging up against her strange, blunt human one. Then she pulled away a little and said, “I really hope you got blinds or something,” nodding at the glass windows of the office.

Garrus swallowed, trying to make his mind work. “Yeah- I-” His hand fumbled along the surface of his desk, trying to ignore Shepard’s hands wandering across his clothes, her soft mouth exploring down along his neck, every inch of her pressed up against him. He finally found the remote and mashed one of the buttons blindly, drawing her mouth back to his as the windows to the right of them went black and opaque. The only lighting now was the glow of Garrus’ computer screen; the light limned every curve and line of Shepard’s body in orange-gold as she pulled him back across the room until her back hit the opposite wall.

Her hands had already ranged down to his hips, her five dexterous fingers making short work of the fastenings on the formal suit trousers. He could feel himself responding to her touch, his cock shifting forward inside his body. He sighed as her fingers explored, burying his face in her neck. He could _smell_ her again, all sweat and skin and something deeper, a heady, thick scent that he supposed must be human arousal. It was good, like thick, sweet wine; he nosed into the juncture between her neck and shoulder, and she shivered as he ran his tongue over the spot as well. “Don’t-please-” she whispered, and he had no idea what she wanted - until she took both his hands and placed them very firmly on her waist.

He laughed, letting his hands curve around the shape of her hips. She didn’t want to wait - and as much as he wanted to savour her, revel in the fact that he was allowed to touch her like this, he didn’t want to wait either. His cock was begging for attention, slipping out of his slit with a loud, wet, sound. He let out another, louder laugh when that caused Shepard to make an almost girlish noise of surprise. “Sorry,” he said against her neck, “They do that sometimes.”

“Warn a girl next time,” he heard her mutter - but his reply was cut off by the feeling of her fingers wrapping around his cock. For a second he could do nothing but gasp into her neck, as her fingers moved, then _squeezed_ -

If she kept that up he wasn’t going to last, and if he embarrassed himself here and screwed up this partnership- relationship- whatever it was, well. He wouldn’t be forgiving himself in a hurry. With that thought in mind, he hiked her dress up around her hips, prompting a gasp from her mouth against his ear. He was in too much of a hurry to bother dealing with her underwear, and it was lacy and delicate enough to snap easily when he tugged at it. “Hope you didn’t like those,” he murmured, throwing them blindly over one shoulder.

“Hated them- fuck-” She let out the curse as he pulled one of her legs up around his hip, where it hooked easily on the ridge above his thigh. He sent a prayer up to whatever gods were listening that he hadn’t thought to take off the gloves he’d worn to the party; they encased his hands in a safe layer of leather, sheathing his talons and meaning he could sink two fingers deep into Shepard immediately. She moaned against him, her hand stilling on his cock, and he smirked at so thoroughly turning the tables.

Her sex was wet and slick and deep, welcoming his fingers, muscles tightening around them. He could feel his cock jerk and spurt out a first little gush of fluid at the thought of it being buried inside her, rather than his fingers. He moved them in and out, marvelling at the slick sound it made, and hearing Shepard hiss and gasp in his ear. “Is this okay?” he murmured. Porn, he realised, had not really prepared him for this; how would he know when she was wet enough to take him? Or in the other direction, how far could he go before making her come before he’d even got inside her?

“Don’t- don’t wait,” she gasped out. He could feel her hips moving back and forth under his hand, in time with his fingers inside her. “God, Garrus, it’s- it’s good now.”

“Who knew you’d lose your usual eloquence in this situation?” Garrus said - which was rich, considering he was hanging onto his higher functions by a thread, panting through the words - but she didn’t have to know that.

“Shut up,” she said, delivering a smack to the broad plane of his back. “Get on with it.”

“Aye aye ma’am,” he said, mimicking the human military expression as he pulled his fingers away. He grabbed her by the ass, hitching her up so both thighs laid across the ridges either side of his hips - and for a second they stayed there, foreheads pressed together, panting, eyes locked. “You sure?” Garrus asked her, trying to clamp down on a flash of nerves that was threatening to blow up and overtake him.

The look in her eyes squashed all of his doubts. “Fuck yes,” she said, her eyes burning into his. She kissed him, the kiss turning into a moan against his mouth as his cock began to push into her. He was a little big for her at first, but she was so slick and hot and so goddamn _tight_ that he couldn’t stop, couldn’t go slow. She welcomed it, panting as he slid deeper, and sighing out a quiet _yes_ when he was finally fully inside her. They stayed like that a second, both breathing hard and in sync again like they had in the car after escaping I’kona’s mansion. They moved together so well, so easily already; it almost felt like they’d been together a lifetime.

His first few thrusts he forced himself to be slow, exploratory, almost gentle. Then Shepard groaned against his ear, conveying impatience even without words - and he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He set a fast pace, grabbing her hip with one hand and slamming the other against the wall as he pressed his mouth against her neck. She panted against his ear, little words mixed in, too low or fast for him to understand. They moved together like breathing, Shepard’s hands tightening around his shoulders even as the muscles inside her tightened around his cock. That was usually what happened when a turian woman was close; Garrus thrust into her harder, forcing little whimpers through her lips, and finally his name, a rough, desperate gasp. “Garrus- Garrus-” she moaned, her breath curling against his ear. He felt her body tighten around him; and then he was coming too, sudden and unexpected, his cock pulsing as it shot out fluid deep inside her. His voice was a rough two-tone warble against the skin of her neck as he sagged against the wall for support, her body trapped between him and the hard concrete.

It was a long time before either of them could do more than pant. Shepard slowly unhooked her legs from around his hips and placed her feet carefully back down on the floor, leaving her arms circled around his back. In the end, she was the one to break the silence. “I’m gonna send you the drycleaners bill,” she said, her voice still a little rough.

“We could’ve gone back to my place,” Garrus said.

Shepard laughed. “I guess this time I’m the impatient one.” She leant up and pressed a kiss to his mouth, and for a long moment they were both distracted by it. Then Shepard pulled away and grimaced. “Don’t want to make you think that wasn’t amazing - it was - but I could really do with a shower now.”

“Yeah,” Garrus said, his mind stuck for a second on Shepard describing sex with him as amazing. “I mean, there’s showers on the next floor.”

“Right.” Shepard sidestepped him, then pushed her skirt back down from around her hips. “Wanna do a walk of shame with me, then, big guy?” she asked. Her grin said clear as a neon sign that she was unashamed of anything they’d done, which quieted the moment of doubt in his heart.

Garrus ignored the long explanation his visor gave for that particular piece of slang, much more focused on the fact that Shepard was asking him to shower with her. “Just follow me.”

/

They didn’t end up going for round two in the showers, mostly thanks to what Executor Palin had done to other couples who got caught doing that. Garrus had thought about offering to take her back to his place, but by then he’d been able to see tiredness creeping into the straight set of Shepard’s shoulders. In the end he’d just taken her back to the _Normandy’s_ docking bay, and she’d kissed his cheek before getting out of the skycar.

The next day it was back to business. They’d agreed not to call Nihlus before they knew what was in the files, so it was only Shepard waiting for him the next day in the office. “Fissa left a message while I was asleep,” he said, handing her a coffee he’d picked up on his way in. “Someone at I’kona’s discovered our device and disconnected it, but not before she downloaded a- what’s your human expression? A ‘shitload’ of stuff?”

Shepard laughed. “Yeah, that’s the one. Has she looked through any of it?”

“Enough to know we can get her on several different counts; Fissa already sent some of it to the Executor, like I asked, so they’re watching for any attempt on I’kona’s part to get off the station. Now he has the dirt on I’kona the Executor’s probably preparing an arrest even now.”

“Right.” Shepard stepped up next to him, her arms crossed against her chest, and the look on her face was troubled.

Garrus ignored his computer for the moment. “What is it?”

“It’s… I keep seeing that salarian. Yonden. How he died- all that black goo coming out of him…”

Garrus winced. “I’m trying _not_ to remember that part.”

“But what _was_ it? I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Some kind of biological weapon? Or a suicide device?” Garrus nodded toward his computer. “Maybe we’ll find out in these files.”

Shepard hummed an agreement, and they both focused their attention on the screen.

First he brought up the program that had hacked into the Citadel’s systems. It made as little sense to him now as it had when he’d seen it on the computer in I’kona’s office; it’s structure didn’t look like any other malware he’d seen before. He set it aside for closer inspection later and paged through the rest of the files, looking for anything that might be research notes, a logbook, or a diary.

There was a lot of data - some of it notes, some of it results from various experiments. In the end he made a copy of the flash drive and let Shepard take it over to the other computer so they could both look through everything at the same time.

After an hour or so Shepard said, “Are you finding all these references to the Keepers?”

“Yeah,” Garrus said, “Looks like that was part of what they were researching.”

“Yonden kept writing, ‘why don’t they respond’,” Shepard murmured, her eyes glued to the screen. “He sounds…”

“Deranged?”

“Like he was going mad,” Shepard confirmed, paging through a file. “The earlier sections are coherent, like proper research notes, but then it… degrades.”

“Does it say anything about how he made the program?” Garrus asked.

“No, not yet. I’ll keep looking.”

Maybe another hour passed by before Garrus heard Shepard’s sudden intake of breath. “What is it?” he said, spinning in his chair, his hand going automatically for his sidearm.

The look on Shepard’s face was both shock and alarm as she said, “Garrus, we need to get through to Nihlus. _Now_.”

/

“So,” Nihlus said, “Not only did you solve the case, but you detected possibly the biggest security risk to the Citadel in several hundred years. That’s not a bad start for your careers as Spectres.”

 _So our promotion to full Spectre status is all but secured._ Something in Garrus was both elated and nervous at the prospect, but he ignored the mess of his own feelings for the moment; instead he nodded to the huge metal edifice that reared up above their heads. “It’s really a mass relay, then?” he asked.

“So far as anyone can tell, yes.” Nihlus looked down at the base of the Relay Monument. The lake surrounding it had been hastily drained so that scientists could run tests, and now construction crews had moved in to begin severing the Monument from it’s base. “They’re going to move it to a secure facility. Even I don’t have the clearance to know where.” He tilted his head, then added, “You still look troubled, Commander.”

Garrus glanced sideways at Shepard. She had her arms crossed and a deep frown on her face as she looked down at the Relay Monument, though she didn’t seem to see it. “We stopped the perpetrators, but I don’t feel like we solved the case,” she said quietly. “No one can make head nor tails of that program they were using to hack the system, or find out where it came from or who made it. We still don’t know why Yonden was interested in the Keepers. We don’t know who built this mass relay, or why.”

“For all we know the Monument was built at the same time as the rest of the Citadel, and by the same people,” Garrus said.

Shepard acknowledged that with a nod of her head. “Okay, but we still don’t know where it was supposed to _go_ , or why. If it was supposed to be a back door onto the Citadel, then for who? And to what purpose?”

“If you could find the other side of the mass relay, you could gather an army there and launch them straight into the heart of the Presidium,” Garrus pointed out. “I’kona and Yonden’s control of the station’s systems was deep, but it wasn’t complete. Putting a gun to the Council’s heads would be a much surer method of holding them to ransom.”

“Sure, that explains why they were interested - or why I’kona was, at least. But who put it here in the first place? And how does it connect to Yonden’s obsession with the Keepers?” Shepard let out an angry sigh and shook her head. “It feels like we’re missing something here; some big piece of the puzzle that would make this all fall into place.”

“You don’t think Yonden was involved for the money, so to speak?” Nihlus said quietly.

“If he just wanted to turn a profit he could’ve sold it to I’kona and been set for the rest of his life,” Shepard said. “Instead he felt like he needed her protection while he researched - or maybe he needed her operations to act like a smoke screen. Either way, he was interested in exactly what makes this station tick, and how to control that.” Shepard closed her eyes, and Garrus saw the barest of shudders go through her. “And the way he died- it was so…”

“Terrifying,” Garrus said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“And it happened right when we’d downloaded everything from his computer system, like it was some kind of punishment. Right after we asked about…” Shepard blinked a few times. “His masters. He mentioned someone other than I’kona.”

Dragging the conversation up out of his memory, Garrus nodded slowly. “Yeah, I remember now. He seemed dismissive of I’kona - like she wasn’t the one who was actually important.”

“So there’s someone else running the show, then,” Nihlus said.

“I’d bet on it,” Shepard said darkly.

Nihlus threw something up into the air, and Garrus reached up to catch it on instinct. “Well, you’re in luck. After the whole Spectre induction ceremony tomorrow - and look surprised when they tell you later, because you’re not supposed to know - I think you might make some progress investigating that.”

Garrus looked at the object in his hand. It was a small, nondescript flash drive, much like the one he’d plugged into Yonden’s computer. “What’s this?”

“Records from the flight log of Yonden’s ship,” Nihlus said. “He resigned his position in the STG abruptly just over a year ago and then left salarian space. It was thought he’d died, until you two claimed to have spoken to him in I’kona’s office. And when C-Sec raided the place yesterday, they found his ship in the back of her garage. It looks like he went out somewhere in the Terminus, beyond any charted star system.”

Garrus had seen an interested light growing in Shepard’s eye, and now she looked almost like a hunting varren who’d caught a scent. “He must’ve found something out there.”

“Or someone,” Nihlus murmured.

“Either way, a hunt through the Terminus Systems sounds like a job for Spectres,” Garrus said, “When did you say we were getting instated?”

“Tomorrow,” Nihlus said, “But I don’t see why you can’t get a headstart today.” Then he pointed a long talon at Shepard and said, “But for star’s sake don’t let Anderson know I already told you. He’d have my head.”

“Won’t say a word,” Shepard said, grinning at him.

“Well, good luck, Spectres. And try not to die, alright? You’re the first candidates I sponsored who actually got the job; you dying on your first mission would look really bad for me.” He gave them a lazy salute, then turned and walked back toward the Council tower.

Left alone on the walkway, for a moment the two of them said nothing. Then Garrus flipped the flash drive over in his hand and said, “So. You think you can convince Anderson to let us take his shiny new warship into the Terminus Systems?”

“I think we might be able to talk him into it.” She knocked her shoulder into his affectionately, and the smile on her face made Garrus’ heart soar. “I think you’re gonna like being a crew member of the _Normandy_ , Vakarian.”

He’d like being a member of any crew, if it meant following her. He returned her grin and said, “Just lead the way, Commander.”


End file.
